Wondering if anyone can shed a little light on this for me, our guild doesn't seem to have the dps to down Firebrand and Stormcaller in story mode, we keep hitting the enrage timer around 15% and I'm looking for a few tips over the obvious get new DPS...

Our team make up is two Assassin tanks, a maruader, sniper, and usually two bounty hunters, our healers vary but they're not our problem,

Our current tactic is BH and Sniper on Fire, with the BH running around dodging rods, once the shields come up all dps switches to the mobs underneath them and the Tank of Storm runs around like a headless chicken.. namely me!... once the red circles appear, everyone hops back on the tanks and we repeat til enrage.

Are we missing an opportunity for more dps somewhere here? Should we have the healer dodging rods where possible to focus the dps?

just to eliminate any obvious answers, i have one piece columni, otherwise I'm rakata and above geared as tank, the other tank isn't far behind with his gear, 3 of the dps are pretty much full Rakata, the other is usually a filler but gnerally in columni gear at least and we continually clear EV/KP HM without any problems at all, and Zorn & Torn dont pose any problems either.

In story mode, what I've normally done is have a healer on the ground rather than a dps. I've done it with the healer on both the firebrand and stormcaller sides dodging the lightning orbs and dodging the missiles and never had a problem. ideally this would be a operative/scoundrel healer as they have the best ability to heal when forced to move, but I've had no problems doing it on either side as a sorc. This will allow your dps more up-time and increase overall dps (though, not nearly enough to contribute 15%)

My group is able to down the hovertanks right around the same time they enrage (probable 2-3 seconds of enrage), and we've (sometimes) hit the enrage timer for Zorn and Thoth.

Meaning, if you're able to down Z&T before they enrage, your group probably has the raw DPS for F&S.

This said, is your merc optimising his dps while running around with the yellow reticle / lightning spires?
There is a certain rythm to it and while the yellow reticle is "locking on" him for a few seconds before the "hard" lock-on, he can certainly stay stationary and DPS, and just taking two steps to avoid the missiles blast. Same with the lightning spire (when the combat start the spire falls first, but as the combat goes on, it will come right after the hard lock-on). Your merc should memorize the pattern and take advantage of every seconds to maximize his uptime.

all the other DPS should be able to perform nominally (on Stormcaller they'll have to move a little to absorb the double destruction but it's insignificant, especially for melee dps).

Meaning, if you're able to down Z&T before they enrage, your group probably has the raw DPS for F&S.

this is what i'm figuring and why i'm a little confused!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Oggthebase

Are the two tanks HP going down at the same pace?

yeah more or less if anything the Firebrand is actually dieing slightly faster, I'm pretty sure the 4th DPS we've bought on the 3 occasions isn't pulling big numbers, I'm glad you guys arent seeing anything fundamantally wrong in what we're doing, we'll give it a better crack later in the week, see where it gets us!

Be thankful you dont have our issues. We keep getting lightning spikes inside the shield. Dunno how. He targets the kiter consistently, then at random one comes inside the shield. No pattern or we'd plan around it. Cant seem to figure out why. Needless to say it's killing our chances of downing the boss. Which is sad, since we pretty much know we can take them, just that 1 random spike kills us almost every time.

I don't know if you are tank swapping or not. We were having some enrage issues, and stopped tank swapping to get a bit more dps and got through it (yes, we know tank swapping is needed in hard mode, will deal with that when we get there).

Stormcaller:
Sin Tank
Merc Heals (me)
various Ranged DPS (typically combo of Sorc, Merc or sniper) - People with long cast times do well for us, here.
----
For storm, we have our 2 ranged DPS stand on the left corner of the tank platform, basically right up against the turret. We then have our Sin tank (who is on the right corner, basically with his back to where the shield will spawn) move to behind them, to drop the DD on them, then he moves back. Super seemless so long as the dps know not to move, and to be nice and close so there is plenty of room for the tank to run and not fall off. During shield, we CC and burn down the 2 mobs in the shield, while the Sin Tank runs in his pattern to drop the lightning rods. He always finishes the drop back behind our shield, so he is in range at the end of the round, so i can heal him from within the shield. Our DPS run back to position just slightly before the red reticles happen, and then the tank and i follow suit.

For DPS, we have all dps, even storm, burning down Fire for the first phase (til the first shield happens). We kill Fire first, everytime. The one time we tried it the other way, his missile bombardment thing killed everyone, as where Storm can be tanked and healed through his enrage pretty easily (we found, ymmv).

The firebrand tanks group has a tougher time during the shield phase, as they sometimes get hit with random rods (as others have mentioned) and after they kill their 3 mobs, their shield drops and the whole group takes a large hit. Make sure you watch your DPS while under here to help out the healer. Dont burn them down too fast if your healer is still working to get everyone healed up. Coordinate. We have good luck killing Fire first (we also kill Zorn and Sorno first in other encounters similar to this), so hopefully this helps. We are overgearing these fights however, as most of us are in full rakata, but its more about execution imo.

Having the dps on Stormcaller stand in one place and the tank rotate the turret to them in Double destruction as Aenene mentioned above works well for my guild, we also have a healer running around on the ground rather then a dps so all the dps are essentially stood still and free to just nuke. Combat logging and ask mr robot as also previously suggested may be a good idea for you guys.

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The statements and opinions expressed on these websites are solely those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect the views, nor are they endorsed by Bioware, LucasArts, and its licensors do not guarantee the accuracy of, and are in no way responsible for any content on these websites.